CHAPTER XXVI.

1 Of idolatry. 2 Religiousness. 3 A blessing to them that keep the commandments. 14 A curse to those that break them. 40 God promiseth to remember them that repent.

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YE shall make you 'no idols nor graven image, neither rear you up a 'standing image, neither shall ye set up any image of stone in your land, to bow down unto it: for I am the LORD your God.

2 'Ye shall keep my sabbaths, and reverence my sanctuary: I am the LORD.

3 ¶ 'If ye walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them;

4 Then I will give you rain in due season, and the land shall yield her increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit.

5 And your threshing shall reach unto the vintage, and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing time: and ye shall eat your bread to the full, and 'dwell in your land safely.

6 And I will give peace in the land, and ye shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid and I will 'rid evil beasts out of the land, neither shall the sword go through your land.

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7 And ye shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword.

8 And five of you shall chase an hundred, and an hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword.

9 For I will have respect unto you, and make you fruitful, and multiply you, and establish my covenant with you.

10 And ye shall eat old store, and bring forth the old because of the new.

11 "And I will set my tabernacle among you and my soul shall not abhor you.

12 "And I will walk among you, and will be your God, and ye shall be my people.

13 I am the LORD your God, which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, that ye should not be their bondmen; and I have broken the bands of your yoke, and made you go upright.

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14 But if ye will not hearken unto me, and will not do all these commandments;

15 And if ye shall despise my statutes, or if your soul abhor my judgments, so that ye will not do all my commandments, but that ye break my covenant :

16 I also will do this unto you; I will even appoint "over you terror, consumption, and

17 And I will set my face against you, and ye shall be slain before your enemies : they that hate you shall reign over you; and "ye shall flee when none pursueth you.

18 And if ye will not yet for all this hearken unto me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins.

19 And I will break the pride of your power; and I will make your heaven as iron, and your earth as brass:

20 And your strength shall be spent in vain for your land shall not yield her increase, neither shall the trees of the land yield their fruits.

21 And if ye walk contrary unto me, and will not hearken unto me; I will bring seven times more plagues upon you according to your sins.

22 I will also send wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children, and destroy your cattle, and make you few in number; and your high ways shall be desolate.

23 And if ye will not be reformed by me by these things, but will walk contrary unto

me;

24 Then will I also walk contrary unto you, and will punish you yet seven times for your sins.

25 And I will bring a sword upon you, that shall avenge the quarrel of my covenant: and when ye are gathered together within your cities, I will send the pestilence among you; and ye shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy.

26 And when I have broken the staff of

your bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver you your bread again by weight: and ye shall eat, and not be satisfied.

27 And if ye will not for all this hearken unto ine, but walk contrary unto me;

28 Then I will walk contrary unto you also in fury; and I, even I, will chastise you seven times for your sins.

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29 And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall

ye eat.

30 And I will destroy your high places, cut down your images, and cast your

and

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3 Or, figured stone. 10 Josh. 23. 10. 15 Prov. 28. 1. 18 Deut. 28. 53.

4 Heb. a stone of picture. 5 Chap. 19. 30.

11 Ezek. 37. 26.

12 2 Cor. 6. 16. 16 Or, at all adventures with me, and so verse 24. 19 2 Chron. 34. 7.

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carcases upon

the carcases of your idols, and my soul shall abhor you.

31 And I will make your cities waste, and bring your sanctuaries unto desolation, and I will not smell the savour of your sweet odours.

32 And I will bring the land into desolation and your enemies which dwell therein shall be astonished at it.

33 And I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you and your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste.

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34 Then shall the land enjoy her sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate, and ye be in your enemies' land; even then shall the land rest, and enjoy her sabbaths.

35 As long as it lieth desolate it shall rest; because it did not rest in your sabbaths, when ye dwelt upon it.

36 And upon them that are left alive of you I will send a faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies; and the sound of a 20shaken leaf shall chase them; and they shall flee, as fleeing from a sword; and they shall fall when none pursueth.

37 And they shall fall one upon another, as it were before a sword, when none pursueth and ye shall have no power to stand before your enemies.

38 Ånd ye shall perish among the heathen, and the land of your enemies shall eat you

up.

39 And they that are left of you shall pine away in their iniquity in your enemies' lands;

20 Heb. driven.

and also in the iniquities of their fathers shall they pine away with them.

40 ¶ If they shall confess their iniquity, and the iniquity of their fathers, with their trespass which they trespassed against me, and that also they have walked contrary unto me;

41 And that I also have walked contrary unto them, and have brought them into the land of their enemies; if then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled, and they then accept of the punishment of their iniquity:

42 Then will I remember my covenant with Jacob, and also my covenant with Isaac, and also my covenant with Abraham will I remember; and I will remember the land.

43 The land also shall be left of them, and shall enjoy her sabbaths, while she lieth desolate without them: and they shall accept of the punishment of their iniquity: because, even because they despised my judgments, and because their soul abhorred my statutes.

44 And yet for all that, when they be in the land of their enemies, "I will not cast them away, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them utterly, and to break my covenant with them for I am the LORD their God.

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45 But I will for their sakes remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the heathen, that I might be their God: I am the LORD.

46 These are the statutes and judgments and laws, which the LORD made between him and the children of Israel in mount Sinai by the hand of Moses.

21 Deut. 4. 31. Rom. 11. 2.

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Verse 1. Neither shall ye set up any image of stone in your land.'—' eben maskith, rendered image of stone,' means literally sculptured stone. Very many of the rites and opinions in the Pentateuch were decidedly anterior to Moses, all of which we denominate patriarchal. Amongst these we reckon the use of pillars, on which their records were most probably depicted in the symbolical style of the day; and these σrnλal are often contrasted with the law engraven on stones. But we do not imply that they were decorated in the same heroo-hieroglyphical manner as the Egyptian pillars; because we find Moses expressly forbidding the sculptured stones' ('maskith) in this place, which particular phrase carries with it some such an idea as the sculptured wall (hadrai maskith) in Ezek. viii. 10, which can only signify emblematical imagery, with which subterranean vaults were ornamented in the Egyptian, Mithraic, Hindoo, and Chaldaic religions. The prohibition of sculptured stones implies the authorized use, of which there are many indications in Scripture, of such as were not sculptured. Pillars, pyramids, and the like, were frequently raised in honour of the dead; and to a late day monumental pillars (matzebath) were found on Hebrew monuments: mounds and other commemoratives were also insignia of pagan sepulture. In very

early times we must imagine certain fixed rites, unction, etc., to have taken place, as we may collect from the poets; and we must extend, with allowances for national variations, those which the early historians assert to have existed among the Egyptians and Ethiopians, to every part of the East. The pyramids of Egypt, doubtless, were erected in compliance with those prevalent ideas; but whether they were or were not sepulchres of the ancient kings of Egypt forms no part of our inquiry. Hence stones and groves formed places of patriarchal worship. Abraham planted a grove in Mamre; Jacob and others raised stones in commemoration of signal instances of divine mercy or preservation, which in subsequent parts of Israelitish history were perverted to idolatrous purposes. Beth-el and Gilgal stand on record as particular places where the former were erected. The stone which Joshua set up under the oak at Shechem (Josh. xxiv. 26) was avowedly an evidence and memorial of the covenant into which the people entered with God. Besides the numerous stones, the occasion of the erection of which is mentioned in Scripture, there are such incidental references to other marked and conspicuous stones as shew that monuments of this kind were numerous in the country. Thus, there is the stone of Bohan the son of Reuben' (Josh. xviii. 17); and in another place (1 Sam. vi. 14, 18) we read of a well-known and distinguished stone of great magnitude, on which even the ark

of God was placed when returned from the Philistines, and taken out of the cart by the Levites. This had before been well known as the great stone of Abel.' Stones were also set up by the Hebrews as memorial monuments of their victories. Such was the Ebenezer, the stone of help,' set up by Samuel (1 Sam. vii. 12). But the reverence for stones appears to have been extended to every nation of the world. When Jason and his companions were about to sail in quest of the Golden Fleece, we discern them, as a previous act of religion, erecting a Bauós, which could only have consisted of rude stones, like those of the patriarchs. From the practice of anointing stones and objects of religious awe, may have arisen that of embalming the dead, which was adopted by Egyptians, Ethiopians, and other people. Lucian, in Deor. Concil., represents such stones as oracular. Athenæus relates the mode of anointing the statue of Ctesian Jove. The Beitula, which were in fact patriarchal remains, were anointed with oil; as were the Dii Termini, which were likewise decorated with crowns. Theocritus instances the unction of plants in honour of the gods. This custom was soon transferred to more ordinary purposes, and was indispensable even in the palæstra: it is, then, no wonder that we so continually trace it in the Law and Jewish ceremonies. We read of a black stone that was venerated in the temple of Mars; answering to that of the Kaaba, which long before Mohammed was as much reverenced as it has been since by his followers. We might bring abundant parallels from Oriental writers, and our own country might furnish many, for of the same kind probably are the erected stones which we find in our own country, of such magnitude, and standing so remote from heaps of stones and Druidical circles, that they can only be regarded as monuments of great victories, although all knowledge of such victories or events has perished. They are, observes King, with much force, like the pyramids of Egypt, records of the highest antiquity in a dead language. Of this kind are the three great stones represented in the engraving. They stand near each other in a field at Trelech in Monmouthshire. They are of unequal height: the highest is thirteen or fourteen feet high. The neighbouring inhabitants call them Harold's Stones, for what reason does not appear; but from their great bulk, and the labour required to erect them, they must have been designed to perpetuate the memory of some event or victory, deemed at the time of the highest importance to the whole people. Historical instances of such erections of stones in commemoration of victories might be

adduced: one is that of the stone set up by Malcolm, son of Kenneth, king of Scots, to commemorate a victory over the Danes about 1008.

26. Ten women shall bake your bread in one oven.'-In the note to ch. ii. 4, we remarked that in the East it was a general custom for families to bake their own bread in the sort of ovens which we there described. The performance of this duty always falls to the lot of the women. These ovens are, as we have seen, small, and only suited to the use of a family; but it is by no means impossible to bake at one of them an adequate supply of bread for ten families, although, of course, the process would consume time. We, therefore, do not, with most expositors, understand scarcity to be implied in the simple fact that ten families baked their bread in one family oven; but that ten families, represented by their females, clubbed their dough together, and the produce being no more than an ordinary supply for one family, it was baked in one oven, instead of each family, as usual, making a separate baking. Afterwards, the cakes thus baked were proportioned by weight to the respective contributors--so precious was the bread. This is implied in the words, 'shall deliver you your bread again by weight;" which shews that the bread was previously theirs, and had been baked for them, not that it was sold to them by weight.

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33. Your land shall be desolate.'-This had doubtless its primary accomplishment during the Captivity; but it has also an ultimate fulfilment in the subsequent and still subsisting desolation of the country. That this desolation of a once fertile and pleasant land is to be regarded as the consequence of that depopulation which the sins of the Israelites brought upon it, and not a curse of irreclaimable sterility upon the land itself, involving, as it necessarily did, a neglect of culture, will appear to be the conclusion to which a careful consideration of the actual condition of the country would lead. We cite with pleasure the clear testimony on this point of Dr. Olin (Travels, ii. 428, 429): The soil of Palestine was the subject on which of all others connected with the country I found my information was most defective. The statements which I had seen were contradictory and irreconcileable. One class of writers describe the country as barren as well as desolate, and use the fact either as an argument against the credibility of the Bible, which ascribes to this soil the greatest fertility, or as a clear demonstration of the Divine origin of the Bible, which has so many predictions of the utter ruin that has fallen upon the country, no less than upon its guilty inha

bitants. To those who are unable to perceive in the prophetic books any clear proof that the soil of Palestine has been specially doomed to a miraculous sterility, it is diffi cult to believe that a country once so famed for its exuberant fruitfulness should have fallen into a degree of barrenness which returning civilization and industry might not easily remedy. The other class of writers appear chiefly concerned to remove or palliate this difficulty; and while they depict the existing evidences of the natural fertility of the soil in terms that often awaken some suspicion of exaggeration, they are ever making large allowance for the observable and wide-spread effects of the prophetic malediction. It is quite certain, I think, that some portions of Palestine, once fertile, are now irreclaimable. The entire destruction of the wood that formerly covered the mountains, and the utter neglect of the terraces which supported the soil upon steep declivities, have given full scope to the rains which have left many tracts of bare rock where formerly were vineyards and cornfields. It is likely, too, that the disappearance of trees from the higher grounds, where they invited and arrested the passing clouds, may have diminished the quantity of rain, and so have exposed the whole country, in a peculiar degree, to the evils of drought, and doomed some particular tracts to absolute sterility. Besides these, I do not recognise any invincible and absolute causes of barrenness, or any physical obstacles in the way of restoring this fine country to its pristine fertility. These causes are not peculiar to Palestine. They exist, perhaps, to a still greater extent in Greece and the islands of the Archipelago, and in the mountainous regions of Asia Minor.'

And your cities waste.'-This is another of the effects of the wars and depopulation brought upon the pleasant land' for the sins of Israel, which must have been manifested during and for some time after the Captivity, and which is perhaps even more signally manifested now, after still more ruinous wars, and a much longer period of depopulation and neglect. Dr. Keith has well pointed out this fact as an illustration and accomplishment of prophecy, although, in our judgment, he and others err in ranking these as primary and special dispensations, whereas they are merely the secondary and inevitable results of the really special dispensation. If you tell a man that he and his shall wander far and see their home no more, he will infer as a natural consequence that his house will be forsaken and fall to ruin, whether you tell him so or not. The first is the special dispensation, out of which the other naturally flows; and although it may be mentioned to heighten the effect of his punishment, we cannot assign to it the same degree of speciality as the other, which, apart from the purpose of God to punish a guilty people, has no antecedent from which it might, in the ordinary course of events, be known even without a distinct revelation. The desolation of the cities of Israel was a natural and pre

intimated result, of a cause also pre-intimated, but which could not also have been foreknown without a special revelation. The same causes-depopulation and neglecthave produced the same effects in all the countries near Palestine of some among them this had been foretold in Scripture; and there are instances in which the effect is in these predictions put, poetically, for the cause which is left to be understood, that is, the desolation of cities is mentioned, and then it becomes really a prediction of depopu lation and overthrow, which must be understood as the cause of the predicted ruin. With this limitation, we may cite the interesting remarks of Dr. Keith: By the concurring testimony of all travellers, Judæa may be now called a field of ruins. Columns, the memorials of ancient magnificence, now covered with rubbish, and buried under ruins, may be found in all Syria. From Mount Tabor is beheld an immensity of plains, interspersed with hamlets, fortresses, and heaps of ruins. Of the celebrated cities, Capernaum, Bethsaida, Gadara, Tarichea, and Chorasin, nothing remains but shapeless ruins. Some vestiges of Emmaus may still be seen. Cana is a very paltry village. The ruins of Tekoa present only the foundations of some considerable buildings. The city of Nain is now a hamlet. The ruins of the ancient Sapphura announce the previous existence of a large city, and its name is still preserved in the appellation of a miserable village called Sephoury. Loudd, the ancient Lydda and Diospolis, appears like a place lately ravaged by fire and sword, and is one continued heap of rubbish and ruins. Ramla, the ancient Arimathea, is in almost as ruinous a state; nothing but rubbish is to be found within its boundaries. In the adjacent country, there are found at every step dry wells, cisterns fallen in, and vast vaulted reservoirs, which prove that in ancient times this town must have been upward of a league and a half in circumference. Cæsarea can no longer excite the envy of a conqueror, and has long been abandoned to silent desolation. The city of Tiberias is now almost abandoned, and its subsistence precarious of the towns that bordered on its lake there are no traces left. Zebulun, once the rival of Tyre and Sidon, is a heap of ruins. A few shapeless stones, unworthy the attention of the traveller, mark the site of Saffre. The ruins of Jericho, covering no less than a square mile, are surrounded with complete desolation; and there is not a tree of any description, either of palm or balsam, and scarcely any verdure or bushes, to be seen about the site of this abandoned city. Bethel is not to be found. (This cannot now be said; see the note on Gen. xii. 8.) The ruins of Sarepta, and of several large cities in its vicinity, are now mere rubbish, and are only distinguishable as the sites of towns by heaps of dilapidated stones and fragments of stones.' 34.

The land shall enjoy her sabbaths.'-See the note on 2 Chron. xxxvi. 21.

CHAPTER XXVII.

2 He that maketh a singular vow must be the Lord's. 3 The estimation of the person. 9 Of a beast given by vow. 14 Of a house. 16 Of a field, and the redemption thereof. 28 No devoted thing may be redeemed. 32 The tithe may not be changed. AND the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,

2 Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When a man shall make a singular vow, the persons shall be for the LORD by thy estimation.

3¶ And thy estimation shall be of the male from twenty years old even unto sixty years

old, even thy estimation shall be fifty shekels of silver, after the shekel of the sanctuary.

4 And if it be a female, then thy estimation shall be thirty shekels.

5 And if it be from five years old even unto twenty years old, then thy estimation shall be of the male twenty shekels, and for the female ten shekels.

6 And if it be from a month old even unto five years old, then thy estimation shall be of the male five shekels of silver, and for the female thy estimation shall be three shekels of silver.

7 And if it be from sixty years old and above; if it be a male, then thy estimation shall be fifteen shekels, and for the female ten shekels.

8 But if he be poorer than thy estimation, then he shall present himself before the priest, and the priest shall value him; according to his ability that vowed shall the priest value him.

9 ¶ And if it be a beast, whereof men bring an offering unto the LORD, all that any man giveth of such unto the LORD shall be holy.

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10 He shall not alter it, nor change it, a good for a bad, or a bad for a good and if he shall at all change beast for beast, then it and the exchange thereof shall be holy.

11 And if it be any unclean beast, of which they do not offer a sacrifice unto the LORD, then he shall present the beast before the priest:

12 And the priest shall value it, whether it be good or bad as thou valuest it, who art the priest, so shall it be.

13 But if he will at all redeem it, then he shall add a fifth part thereof unto thy estimation.

14 ¶ And when a man shall sanctify his house to be holy unto the LORD, then the priest shall estimate it, whether it be good or bad as the priest shall estimate it, so shall it stand.

15 And if he that sanctified it will redeem his house, then he shall add the fifth part of the money of thy estimation unto it, and it shall be his.

16 ¶ And if a man shall sanctify unto the LORD some part of a field of his possession, then thy estimation shall be according to the seed thereof: an homer of barley seed shall be valued at fifty shekels of silver.

17 If he sanctify his field from the yearof jubile, according to thy estimation it shall

stand.

18 But if he sanctify his field after the jubile, then the priest shall reckon unto him the money according to the years that remain, even unto the year of the jubile, and it shall be abated from thy estimation.

19 And if he that sanctified the field will in any wise redeem it, then he shall add the fifth part of the money of thy estimation unto it, and it shall be assured to him.

20 And if he will not redeem the field, or if he have sold the field to another man, it shall not be redeemed any more.

21 But the field, when it goeth out in the jubile, shall be holy unto the LORD, as a field devoted; the possession thereof shall be the priest's.

22 And if a man sanctify unto the LORD a field which he hath bought, which is not of the fields of his possession;

23 Then the priest shall reckon unto him. the worth of thy estimation, even unto the year of the jubile: and he shall give thine estimation in that day, as a holy thing unto the LORD.

24 In the year of the jubile the field shall return unto him of whom it was bought, even to him to whom the possession of the land did belong.

25 And all thy estimations shall be according to the shekel of the sanctuary: 'twenty gerahs shall be the shekel.

26 Only the 'firstling of the beasts, which should be the LORD's firstling, no man shall sanctify it; whether it be ox, or sheep: it is the LORD'S.

27 And if it be of an unclean beast, then he shall redeem it according to thine estimation, and shall add a fifth part of it thereto or if it be not redeemed, then it shall be sold according to thy estimation.

28 ¶ Notwithstanding no devoted thing, that a man shall devote unto the LORD of all that he bath, both of man and beast, and of the field of his possession, shall be sold or redeemed: every devoted thing is most holy unto the LORD.

29 None devoted, which shall be devoted of men, shall be redeemed; but shall surely be put to death.

30 And all the tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land, or of the fruit of the tree, is the LORD's: it is holy unto the LORD.

31 And if a man will at all redeem ought of his tithes, he shall add thereto the fifth part thereof.

32 And concerning the title of the herd, or of the flock, even of whatsoever passeth under the rod, the tenth shall be holy unto the LORD.

33 He shall not search whether it be good or bad, neither shall he change it and if he change it at all, then both it and the change thereof shall be holy; it shall not be redeemed.

34 These are the commandments, which the LORD commanded Moses for the children of Israel in mount Sinai.